Seven Stories: St. Bede's School #2 Collagraphs and Felt

Detail from a stitched and coloured collagraph print

Since March I've been working with a class at St. Bede's school on Prism Arts second library project. Looking back over my blog I realised I've only written one post so I thought I'd do a short series of posts covering some of the things we've been up to over the past three and a bit months.

Preparing paper with tea bags

Painting the blocks with printing ink

Using a roller as a brayer for an even print

Before I started working with the class they'd been working with a writer, Mr. Beautiful (aka David Napthine) on stories inspired by a 700 year old manuscript they'd seen when they visited Carlisle library. So, as you can read about in my previous post, I began by making collagraph plates with the students based on the characters in their stories. We used the collagraph blocks to make a series of prints on paper and fabric. One of the things I got the students to do was to prepare some papers using tea bags to give more of an 'ancient manuscript' feel (and because it's fun and it's good to think about the surface you're working on rather than always using plain white paper.) Some of the prints they produced from these blocks are fantastic and we spent a bit of time working back into the prints with fabric crayons and stitching.

Moment of truth

Revealing the print

Multiple prints

The basic theme we've been working on for the library project is vessels and I wasn't sure how or what kind of vessel we would produce as a class. However, I began the project confident that along the way the pupils and I would come up with an idea or the work would naturally start to suggest a finished form. When we were looking at the finished collagraph prints one of the students said "they look like flags" and he was right, they did. This led to me thinking about prayer flags and so we decided that our finished piece would be a set of flags inspired by the characters and landscapes of their stories. This is possibly stretching the term vessel but it just works so beautifully with the work the students have produced that I think it's an allowable stretch!

Print on prepared paper

Print on fabric

Print on fabric

Having decided we would make flags I started thinking about the construction of the flags and what I wanted the students to get from the project. I wanted to give them the opportunity to try a wide range of techniques and experiment with different media as often in schools there is not the time or resources for this to happen. I think this is a great shame as I believe creative activities are really important to help develop imagination and problem solving skills, motor skills, communication and team work skills and to build confidence and self esteem. It's also a lot of fun and I think that's a lot more important than we think.

Stitching into the collagraphs

Adding detail with fabric crayons

A finished coloured and stitched collagraph

Once again, I digress. having made the collagraph prints we needed to make a second side for the flag. I was very inspired by the collages they'd made in the first week with me and thought they would lend themselves well to felt making. I also liked the idea of having the characters on one side and the landscapes on the other.

Preparatory drawings and pastel studies

Blending colours

Laying out the samples

I started out by getting the pupils to create the landscapes from the stories in pastels, as they blend well which helps in getting into the mindset for felt making, before making small sample pieces of felt. I wanted them to make samples for several reasons, firstly it's a good way to get used to a technique without the pressure of producing something 'finished.' Felt making is a very accessible process but like everything the more you know about it the more things you can do with it. I wanted the students to have a chance to encounter some of the potential problems and find out how to solve them before they started on their flags for the library. Secondly, throughout the project I have been encouraging the students to keep all their preparatory work (sketches, collages, print blocks and so on) so that at the end of the project we can each make a book showing the techniques we've experimented with and how we got to the finished piece.

Rainforest sample

Some of the finished samples

The samples the students produced were excellent. Building on their experiences from the collagraphs I reminded them that this wasn't the best technique for getting fine detail and often, simple bold shapes worked better. I also encouraged them to look at carefully blending their colours to create different effects. As well as creating lovely samples it was also great to see the pupils helping each other out and working together when it came to rolling the felt.

Laying out the flag pieces

Adding hot soapy water (not milk)

Starting the felting by rubbing gently

The next session we moved on to making our flag felts. This was really interesting as the flags needed to be laid out much bigger than the samples (felt shrinks to between 20-50% of the original size) and this change of scale seemed to be quite challenging for a lot of the pupils. They also seemed to forget, or chose not to heed, a lot of the things they'd learnt previously about laying out the fibres as finely as they could and in particular being gentle when we started the felting process. However, we overcame these challenges and each student produced a successful piece of felt. Felt making can be quite physical and I think the challenge of working hard on a process for two sessions on the trot was difficult for some of the students. They like instant results and to be on to the next thing!

Team work rolling the felt

Team work rolling the felt

We also made some felt beads

I mounted the finished felt onto coloured fabric so that when we came to make the flags all the pieces of work were roughly the same size. It was interesting seeing how different all the pieces were, reflecting the individual character of each child.

Forget Me Not: Quintinshill Commemorative Participatory Art Project

The finished  piece on display in the train station

Interpretation panel

Another project finished this week, this time one done through my work at The Heathlands Project. In November last year we won some money through The People's Millions (thank you to everyone who voted for us!) One of our obligations is to provide a number of public events. We wanted one of these events to be a participatory art project so a couple of months ago (maybe more, I've lost track a bit) we went to speak to the community team at Carlisle Train station. They were really keen to work with us and offered us lots of support in terms of space and money for materials. They also had a suggestion for what the project could be about: the Quintinshill rail disaster.

One of my sample tickets

Some of my examples

Some of my examples

This year is the centenary of the Quintinshill train disaster, the worst train disaster in British history. On the morning of 22nd May 1915 a troop train carrying soldiers en route to Gallipoli collided with a local passenger train, the express train from Glasgow then also collided with these two trains sparking a massive fire, a further two goods trains stood on nearby passing loops were also consumed by the fire. The precise death toll has never been ascertained as the roll list of the regiment was lost in the fire, which completely consumed some of the victims. It is believed that 214 soldiers and 12 civilians were killed with another 246 people injured. The accident happened near Gretna, making Carlisle the nearest large station and many local people have stories to tell of family or friends involved in the disaster.

Tickets made throughout the project

Tickets made throughout the project

As I was planning what to do or make for the project I did some research into flowers and their symbolism. Forget me nots symbolise true love and memories and were used to decorate gifts with the hope that the receiver would remember the giver. In Newfoundland Forget Me Nots are worn on the 1st July to remember those killed in the Great War. So, it seemed appropriate to use this flower to commemorate the people killed in the Quintinshill disaster, a local tragedy in a time of global tragedy. The use of train tickets had been suggested which also linked in well so I designed the project around decorating train tickets with Forget Me Nots.

Sewing the tickets into strips

Tickets sewn into strips

Because I mostly work in textiles my first thought was to embroider train tickets with Forget Me Nots. These tickets could then be sewn together to make a hanging. As many people are not very confident sewing and as the aim of the project was to engage people at the train station (so they may not have had much time to spare) I thought it would also be good to decorate tickets with drawings of Forget Me Nots. I made some samples, some instruction sheets and some inspiration sheets and began to collect materials.

Starting to lay the strips out

Detail

Growing, strip by strip

This was a slightly odd participatory project for me because although I designed the project, sourced the materials and put the final piece together I didn't actually do any of the participatory bits! This part of the project was led some of my colleagues at The Heathlands Project, working at the train station and Costa they engaged people using the station and encouraged people to decorate a ticket to become part of our final piece. As well as Forget Me Nots we extended the brief to include 'travel' so as not to alienate anyone who didn't want to stitch or draw a flower.

Me sewing the strips together

Me sewing the strips together

More tickets to sew!

I then came in to stitch all the tickets together to make the final piece. It was so fantastic coming in and seeing the tickets people had created, some of them were really personal with poignant messages, some beautifully executed, some very imaginative but all done with care and consideration.

All the strips, ready to be joined together

Some of the tickets

Detail

I constructed the piece by first sewing the tickets into strips of ten, one person had used the joined up tickets to make a series of train carriages which I thought would make a beautiful border for the piece. As he had illustrated 20 tickets I decided to make the strips 10 tickets long so I could have a border of train carriages at the top and the bottom.

Sewing the strips together

Sewing the strips together

Sewing the strips together

It was all going very well and I was feeling quite pleased with myself having sewn together around 160 tickets when I then found a further 78 tickets in another box, a further 11 then emerged so I had to enlist my colleague to create another ticket as those who are good at maths will have realised that 160+78+11 does not equal a number divisible by 10!

All the tickets sewn together

All the tickets sewn together

All the tickets sewn together

Anyway, I got all the strips sewn constructed and set about sewing them together to create the final piece. This was somewhat challenging once I had a few strips sewn together because card does not behave in the same way as fabric and cannot be pushed and pulled in the same way without ripping. Once again my colleague helped me out, helping me manoeuvre the piece through the sewing machine. Incidentally, despite sewing together 250 train tickets I didn't break a single needle.

Crocheted Forget Me Nots

Crocheted Forget Me Nots

The final touch was adding the 100 crocheted Forget Me Nots that another colleague had made especially for the piece. They are really beautiful and finish it off perfectly.

Detail

Detail

Detail

The final piece was unveiled on Thursday 21st at the train station as part of the commemorative events, along with  a Gamelan performance by members of The Heathlands Project. I have enjoyed working on the project and I'm really pleased with the final result. Some of the tickets are so beautiful and some are really moving, I think it is something that people have been able to engage with and the resulting hanging demonstrates this. I think this piece works very well visually as well, the patterns on the tickets work well from a distance and then as you move in closer you can appreciate all the hard work that has gone into each individual ticket.